Luminaria
by jazzforthecaptain
Summary: A company called Luminaria makes memories into 'enhanced sensory experiences,' but attracts the attention of hunters and Torchwood alike as their clients' mental health deteriorates rapidly. Castiel is forced to call in outside help when Jack abandons him to pursue the Luminaria mystery on his own. When Jack pays a heavy price, it's up to Castiel to save him from his own ghosts.


Arjun Joshi's wife had been coaxing him to commit suicide for three days.

Kalapini nestled next to him, real as life, and untouchable. The fabric of her shirt exhaled her scent, the perfume wrapping Arjun's heart with tentacles of pain. "Have you thought about what we talked about?" Kalapini asked, eyes large and soft with missing him. Arjun tried to reason with himself, remember again that the pretty eyes were dead. That she couldn't be real. His heart twisted.

"Dearest," Arjun murmured, "please stop asking me. I want to make you happy, but I cannot leave our daughter."

Kalapini's small hands fluttered near Arjun's, tantalizing with their closeness, enough to make him cry. "She will be fine. Your mother will raise her. And then we can be truly together."

"I love you," Arjun murmured, aching and trembling, "but please, Kala, you're hurting me. Leave me alone."

"I hurt _you_?" Kalapini's hands withdrew, and the lovely eyes that saw Arjun's soul were cloudy with betrayal. "You're going to send me away? You wouldn't do that if you really loved me."

Arjun felt her logic begin to take hold. He scooted away, moving with joints of glass to his cellular phone on the dining room table.

Kalapini's pain followed him. "If you weren't such a coward, we would already be together! You don't love me enough!"

Fingers vibrating hard enough to slide off the buttons, Arjun dialed the fire station. Captain Terry Greggs picked up the phone. His familiar, living voice drew Arjun back to the edge of sanity. "Cap, I need help," Arjun said, thick and hesitant, "I'm seeing Kala."

 _"Nightmares?"_ Captain Greggs asked, his worry conveying down the phone line. Arjun shook his head hard, scrubbed at his thin hair.

"No, I'm seeing her right now, Cap," Arjun carefully didn't look back at the couch, in case Kalapini was still there (or in case she was gone). "She keeps asking me to kill myself. Cap, gotta come get me. I'm gonna do it." The revelation, spoken allowed, surprised him and the Captain both. Captain Greggs started talking immediately, concern cranked up another notch, and Arjun swiped a palm down his sweaty forehead.

 _"You at your apartment?"_ Captain Greggs demanded.

Arjun heard the metallic rustle of keys on the other end of the line. He closed his eyes. "Yeah. I'm here."

 _"Stay on the line. Lock up, then come down to the lobby. Where's your daughter? You still got that cat?"_

"She's at my mom's. And n-no. After Kala… I-I just… I couldn't, Cap. Her sister's daughter took him."

A door slammed. _"Okay, that's good. Go down to the lobby right now. I'm coming, Lieutenant."_

The reminder of Arjun's rank at the fire station tightened him up a little. A rank. He had a rank. He had a _daughter_ , and a rank.

Kalapini was at his shoulder. "Are you really going to abandon me, Arjun?" She looked up at him with accusation. "You saved me, for what? To fix your conscience? I'm _dead_ because of you. I'm all alone!"

Arjun tried not to engage her. But she railed on, as if she could hear the guilt pouring out of his mind. She was a spirit, or a hallucination, so of course she could. "Cap, I should call my daughter."

 _"You can call her once you're in my truck,"_ Captain Greggs said firmly, _"I'm almost there. Stay on the line."_

Arjun snagged his satchel and phone charger. Kalapini stood over him while he reeled it up. "I hate you," she hissed, "I should hate you forever for this."

"No," Arjun begged.

 _"Arjun?"_ Captain Greggs asked, worried.

"I'm here, Cap," Arjun answered him, scrubbing at his eyes. He spun, snatched his keys from the counter, and all but jogged down the corridor to the elevators.

Kalapini dogged his footsteps, her sweet smell choking him. Her accusing eyes were the last thing Arjun saw before the elevator doors closed on her face.

But she was with him in the lobby. She was with him when Captain Greggs met him, put an arm around him, led him out to the truck. She was with him at the hospital, until he broke and began wailing at her, pleading for her to stop, offering to kill himself just to make her happy. The nurses felt so bad for him. They watched his eyes flutter as they pushed the sedatives into his drip, and thought, what a poor brave man. Such a hero, to have suffered so much.

* * *

Castiel pushed away from his laptop and got to his feet. "We've got another one, Jack."

Jack curled his head around the bathroom doorway. "Another satisfied Luminaria customer?"

Luminaria was a service - calling itself a clinic - that offered customers the chance to revisit memories of loved ones in what they referred to as a 'deep, full-sensory experience.' Many people had only good things to say about the service, but a growing number of people were showing adverse effects. Castiel went to the window of their hotel room. He pushed back the drapes. "Yes, Jack. He's alive, but he's reporting hallucinations of his deceased wife." Castiel rubbed the back of his neck. "After he attempted suicide, they keep him sedated and in light restraints."

"He talks to himself like the other ones did?"

"He talks to her," Castiel corrected, nodding.

"Occupation?"

"Firefighter."

Jack made a thoughtful noise in his throat and came to join him. Behind him, the in-room coffee maker burbled. "And that makes seven in three days," Jack said, an arm around Castiel's neck from behind. They stood like that for a little while, watching the street below them in easy silence. "At first I thought it was some reaction with their traumatic jobs. Two soldiers and an E.R. surgeon, but then there was that insurance guy."

"And the lawyer," Castiel leaned back against Jack's shoulder with a sigh. "And the programmer."

"Right." Jack rested his cheek against the back of Castiel's head. "And now a firefighter."

The scent of coffee curled around them. The morning outside their window was golden and sunny, promising an unusually warm March day. People on the street were already taking off their jackets.

"We need to get in there," Jack grumped. He backed up, pacing restlessly back to the coffeemaker.

Castiel turned from the window to watch him go. "And we're investigating tonight, Jack."

Jack stirred his coffee, broad frame filling up the mirror above the sink. Castiel watched his profile in its reflection, trying to read his expression.

"I want you to go talk to that guy," Jack said finally. At the window, Castiel rolled his shoulders back.

"Jack, that's four hours away," he argued, "I won't be back by tonight, if I go."

Jack turned to him, mouth a hard line. "We need that information."

"I have a press pass," Castiel snapped, "I'll call him."

Over the rim of his paper cup, Jack's eyes were icy. "Did I stutter?"

Castiel returned the gesture. "On the contrary, your motivations are transparent. You don't want me with you," he leaned towards Jack, " _No._ "

Jack's voice rose, a snarl slipping into his tone. "You're damn right, I don't want you in there with me. You get shot, you die. Until we get you fixed, you're out of combat!"

"I'm not _broken!_ " Castiel shouted.

Jack slugged the half-full coffee cup into the trashcan with a noisy splash. "I will NOT lose you!"

A cold slap of adrenaline blasted over Castiel's skin, turning him to ice as his heart jumped in his throat. He stalked into Jack's space. He chose his next words carefully, drawling them out slow. "I am not your property. What will you do if you _can't_ make me an angel again, Jack? Put me in a cage?" He watched as the threat took hold, the dawning horror in Jack's eyes. And then something inside Jack shut off. He looked down, and back up, and his expression was dead.

"You're off the team," Jack proclaimed.

Castiel's fists curled tight. His shoulders squared. "I was never on your team, Captain Jack Harkness," he growled, "Anymore than a pet could be." He spun away, snapping up his duffel bag, and let the momentum carry him out of the hotel room.

* * *

In a cafe twelve blocks south, Castiel called Sam.

 _"How's Jack?"_ Sam wanted to know.

"Self-centered, egotistical, and a secretive, emotionally repressive control freak."

 _"So in other words,"_ Sam chuckled, _"same as always."_

Castiel's fork bit aggressively into his slice of lemon cake.

Sam let the silence linger a little. _"How are you, Cas?"_

Castiel sighed. "Same as always," he said.

 _"Honestly, are you okay?"_

Dodging the question, Castiel focused on the purpose of the call. "I need your help with a case, Sam. Have you been following the Luminaria deaths?"

 _"We just questioned the newest victim today,"_ Sam offered, after another little hesitation, _"They've got him into therapy, so he's better, but he's still talking to his dead wife like she's in the room."_

The barista called out Castiel's order. He rose to pick it up, tucking the phone under his cheek as he stirred in half and half. "Do you have any leads? Besides Luminaria, do you see a pattern?"

 _"Actually, yeah,"_ Sam admitted, _"I did some digging into the wife's death. Turns out Kalapini Joshi - the guy's wife? - was stabbed to death in a mugging. And get this: Arjun was supposed to be with her. It was a date or something, but he missed dinner because of a fire alarm. So I did some more digging. Into the other victims."_

Foul mood notwithstanding, Castiel smiled into his coffee cup. "You found something," he said, with a warm curl of unbidden pride.

 _"They've all got stories like that,"_ Sam said, _"They were all talking about people they couldn't save, before they died. Husbands, wives, kids, even patients. But it's not vengeful, and it doesn't seem like a monster - Arjun's room was dead. Whatever it is, it's in his head."_

Castiel watched the flotilla of bubbles spinning gently in the center of his coffee. He felt cold again, skin crinkling from his scalp and down his spine. The sensation spread out, banding tight around his chest. "They feel guilty about a loved one's death, and they used Luminaria's services," Castiel leaned his forehead on his palm. "Sam, how fast can you get to Tulsa?"

On the other end was a brief murmur of exchange. _"We can probably make it in two and change. What's in Tulsa?"_

"Me. Jack's going into the Luminaria clinic here tonight, to find out what they're doing to these people," Castiel took a deep breath, "I don't think he should go in there."

 _"You can't stop him?"_

"No," Castiel said, "he's determined, and he wants to work alone on this investigation," he took a deep swallow of coffee, to deter himself from volunteering more.

There were murmurs in the background of the call. Castiel strained to hear them, but he could only catch tones. Dean clearly didn't want to come, by the sound of his voice. Castiel didn't want to see _him_ either. But Sam and Dean came as a unit.

 _"Cas?"_ Sam returned to the line, _"We're headed your way. I'll let you know when we get in tonight."_

Castiel let out a slow breath, the tight twist of his heart easing. "Thanks, Sam."

 _"No problem. Call me sometime when you're not pissed at Jack, all right?"_

Castiel rolled his eyes. "By that I assume you mean 'never.'"

Sam's laughter made him feel a little better.

* * *

Having a Winchester on either flank brought a sense of safety that ached. Castiel hated it. At least he held his own with them now - and if Dean didn't like it, Castiel didn't care.

…Actually, that was dishonest. He did care. But he wouldn't give Dean Winchester the satisfaction of knowing.

"Trouble in paradise, Cas?" Dean asked, as they crouched in the alley across the street from the Luminaria clinic. Castiel ignored him.

A dark, man-shaped figure separated itself from the shadows in the alley right across the street. It opened a side door and slipped into the Luminaria building.

"That's our cue," Sam murmured. They gave Jack a few minutes, then followed.

Castiel tried to ignore the lead weight that bobbed in his stomach.

The inside of the Luminaria clinic was much like the outside - professional, comfortable and sterile. The exam rooms were tiled in warm grey, with white walls of some whorled stone. Like the rest of the building, they were empty. There were no implements in any of them, and the cabinets were bare. Castiel kept the lead, listening for movement with a tight chest. His fears about Jack's safety were real, but this felt wrong nonetheless.

They passed a heavy, locked medicine case. The lock was secured by a passcard, but someone had been there before them, and the cabinet doors hung ajar. Castiel reached in for a bottle of labeled liquid, and passed it to the others. Sam set the bottle on top of the cabinet and trained a penlight on it, clamped between his teeth, while he searched up the drug compound on his phone.

" _Silene undulata,_ " Sam whispered, "There's African Dream Root in this. Plus herbs for calling the _dead_. And some things I don't recognize. It's heavy stuff."

"People are shooting up spells? No wonder this place creeped me out," Dean said.

Sam's phone screen flicked off. "There's got to be more to it than that." He tucked the bottle into the chest pocket of his jacket. As they moved down the corridor, a loud crash echoed up to meet them. They froze, and in the quiet, heard a voice.

Jack.

He was talking to someone. Castiel's skin flashed cold all over again.

The end of the hallway split into a T. To the left was an exam room - to the right a set of stairs, leading up.

In the exam room was Jack. He sat on the central table like a patient, his back to the door, coat folded over the edge and sleeves rolled up. The rubber tourniquet was still tied around his upper arm.

He was still talking.

"This isn't you," Jack said to the empty counter, rubbing his upper arm, "I know you. You're not real."

"Jack?" Castiel ventured, stepping into the room. Jack started, turned, and glared at him. His narrow gaze flicked to the Winchesters watching from the hallway.

"More hallucinations?" Jack demanded.

"As much as I want to kill you," Castiel said with a swallow, "I don't want you to die, Jack. I followed you. We followed you."

Jack's eyes lingered on Castiel. They were glazed, and a little wild, like a darted animal. "They're all here," he said, and his voice cracked.

"I know, Jack."

"I saw Ianto, Castiel. I'm sorry. I wanted to see him. I tried to save him this time, it was like… being in a dream I could control. And I did. I got him out all right. But when I woke up, everything was wrong." He was panting a little, eyes glistening in the dim light of Sam's flashlight. "I think they're all here. There's been six so far. Plus Ianto." He glanced to the side, fingers tucking under his thigh as if to stop himself from reaching out. "I can't die, it never sticks. Don't ask me that."

"He wouldn't," Castiel said firmly, "Jack, that's not Ianto. That's your brain. It's your guilt. The injection's making you hallucinate." He looked up to the Winchesters, who were fidgeting without something to fight. "We need to get him out of here."

Jack was listening to someone else again, lost in a conversation none of them could hear.

* * *

Four hours later, Jack had been installed at the Bunker, and cuffed to a bed.

Castiel opted to watch him, while Jack slipped deeper and deeper into insanity. He seemed unable to 'reset' from whatever spell the injection laid on him. Ghosts of past loves crowded around him, most of them cruel. Ianto figured the most prominent, in the conversations Castiel could understand. Jack rambled, and laughed, shouted and cried. Some days he hardly seemed to notice the presence of a real person, and some days he clung to the company. The conversations were organic, the characters changing script every time, with one recurring theme - Jack should end his life.

Ianto was the projection of the deep guilt stemming from his death, as were the others. Jack, as Castiel suspected the morning before the deed, was the worst candidate to experience the effect of the drug. He had lovers a-plenty, and family, and dear friends - most of which had short, tragic lives. Whatever Jack had done in his 'dreamscape' by rescuing Ianto from death had changed something in him, and now he had a cavalcade of invisible companions.

Sam investigated the chemical compound. He slipped a sample of it to some contacts elsewhere, and within days the truth about the dangerous untested drugs in Luminaria's 'deep sensory experience of memory' shut the facilities down, nationwide. The drug cocktail in the cabinet from the Tulsa location was confiscated, and was being tested to find a cure for Arjun, and others like him.

Jack continued to downspiral. Soon, he was incoherent, and Castiel knew the day was coming when Sam and Dean would come to him for an unpleasant talk. They now has a potentially dangerous, immortal creature in their basement. If they couldn't kill it, they walled it up. Castiel knew this.

He started avoiding them.

Then Jack went catatonic.

Castiel came in with a meal for Jack, to find him staring at the ceiling. He didn't blink. He didn't respond to questions, and barely reacted to touch. Castiel put the tray down, went out in the hall, and crouched next to the wall, hands spread and shaking on the cold tile. When he rose, his fists doubled over. Sam and Dean were on a job. By the time they returned, Castiel's last-ditch plan would be finished, or too far along to stop.

He found the African Dream Root in a box in the storage room.

* * *

Jack's dreamscape was anything but normal. Already off-kilter just by being what he was, wth the creeping work of the Luminaria drug Jack no longer thought in normal patterns. Castiel found himself in a total dark, on a path lined by tiny candles in white paper bags. He walked, expecting to get somewhere, but found only more candles. They stretched off into the dark in either direction, and when Castiel tried to step over them, walk perpendicular to the line, he'd just find himself back on the path.

Frustrated, Castiel sat down by the line of bags. They were the only thing _in_ this dreamscape, except himself. He reached out for one.

The moment his fingers brushed the bag, Castiel was in a nighttime garden. There was Jack before him, surrounded by his Cardiff team, and in his arms was a frail old woman.

Suddenly the old woman stood at Castiel's shoulder. She was a tiny thing, wrapped in a fluffy shawl. "He's a lovely man, our Jack, but he can be a dirty cheat and a liar," she said to Castiel, "I'm Estelle Cole. He broke a promise to me."

Castiel held out his hand, and when Estelle took it, he folded her fingers between his own. "Is that why you're here?"

"Where, dear?" Estelle asked, sounding puzzled.

"In the real world. Outside these dreams."

"I don't understand," Estelle said, "This isn't a dream. I'm as real as you are. And Jack shouldn't have left, but if he'll just come with me, things can be right again." She gestured at Jack, rocking her still body, "You see there? He misses me. We're soul mates."

The nighttime garden faded, taking Estelle Cole with it, leaving Castiel with his hand on a softly glowing white paper bag. A luminaria. A memorial for the dead.

Of course.

Gently, Castiel blew into the bag he touched. As its light went out, the dark around Castiel seemed just a shade less intense. Still seated, he reached for the adjacent one—

Alex Hopkins held a gun to his head, surrounded by Christmas decorations, while the world counted down to the end of the millennium.

And another one—

Steven Sangster bled out in his mother's arms, while she stared Jack down and demanded to know why.

One by one, Castiel touched them, and one by one, he blew them out. The dark was no longer oppressive, and the line of little white lanterns seemed shorter now than it had been. He worked through the night, tirelessly as one can only in dreams, until his heart felt bruised with the ghosts of Jack's past. There were two left, Owen Harper - who seemed about as eager to be gone as Castiel was to release him - and—

"Hello, Castiel," Ianto Jones said from behind him, before Castiel could touch the last luminaria, "I've got a right to be here, you know. You can't put me out. You won't."

Castiel turned. In the misty light, Ianto cut a stark figure. His hands were in his pockets, rucking up the jacket of a perfectly tailored suit. He had a vague smile, as if Castiel's mission here amused him.

"I'm not," Castiel agreed, "but you shouldn't be here."

"Jack's not allowed to remember me?" Ianto shook his head, "Are you such a jealous boyfriend?"

He was a piece of Jack's brain, Castiel reminded himself, a projection of his guilt wrapped up in a spell, and clearly elements of the magic could defend themselves. "I'm not a boyfriend," Castiel said, "and you're not a memory. You're a piece of dark magic that's driving Jack insane."

Ianto laughed. "Magic? Really."

Castiel huffed. _That_ part of Jack's brain, at least, he'd dealt with on enough occasions to work around. "You're hurting Jack," he said, "He feels guilty about your death."

The easy, dismissive smile on Ianto's lips faltered. He seemed to quiver, shivering all the pleasantries out until he exploded in fury: "He fucking SHOULD."

Castiel ducked away from the blast. "Why?"

Tears rolled down Ianto's cheeks. "Because he led me to the Four-Five-Six like a bleeding lamb!"

"Ianto," Castiel said, as reasonably as he could, "Jack's told me that story. You're a braver man than he'll ever be. A better man. You're the reason he stood up to them."

Ianto was silent.

"Let me have the candle," Castiel asked, holding out his hands.

"No. He'll forget me. The memories are already slipping. They're getting harder to see every day. One day he'll lose me. Even my name."

Castiel dropped his hands, unable to argue against it because for all he knew, it might be true. He pushed them into his pockets, watching Ianto, knowing his time in the dreamscape was up. He felt powerless. Maybe Jack could come back from this, at least. Maybe with only Ianto left to haunt him, he could overcome it. But it was still so dark. Even lighter than it had been, these thoughts were still empty rooms. Jack's mind had no color, only the leftovers of the spell from the Luminaria drug. The recollection sparked one last idea. Castiel took a deep breath. "Ianto, do you know why you exist?"

Ianto turned back to him, away from the candle he'd been guarding.

"Jack saved you," Castiel offered, "He loves you, Ianto."

At first, Ianto stared, wondering at Castiel's audacity. Then dawning recognition lit his face, as Jack, too, remembered.

"Let me save him," Castiel pleaded. And Ianto smiled, and shook his head.

"Not your Jack to save," Ianto said, and blew out the luminaria himself.

* * *

Jack and Castiel came to consciousness simultaneously, wide-eyed and panting at one another. Jack's chest heaved like a spent racehorse, but he was alive, and responsive, and the eyes that looked at Castiel really saw him. No lunacy; or no more than the usual. Castiel released his cuffs, and curled around him.

"Did we finish it?" Jack managed eventually, hands buried in Castiel's hair.

Exhausted, Castiel nodded. "It's over."

Jack sighed, and relaxed underneath him. "Thanks for rescuing my sanity."

Castiel closed his eyes, ear pressed to Jack's chest as he calmed. "It wasn't mine to save," he said at last.


End file.
